


You Are My Sunshine

by ecto_gammat



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-03
Updated: 2011-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-15 08:10:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecto_gammat/pseuds/ecto_gammat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peg sees changes in her husband through his letters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are My Sunshine

_You are my sunshine,  
My only sunshine.  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey.  
You'll never know, dear,  
How much I love you.  
Please don't take my sunshine away;_

Her heart always quivers when she sees her husband’s handwriting in the mail. She lives for the letters she gets from him, always signed “All my love”. She reads his letters voraciously, savoring every word. She hasn’t seen him in over a year; his daughter can’t remember him.

“You are my sunshine, Peg”, he wrote once. “The life saver that keeps me tethered to reality. I don’t think I could ever tell you how much I miss you and Erin. Even if I could, I don’t know if you would believe me.”

His letters have slowly changed. Slowly, slowly, his mentions of missing Mill Valley were replaced with details of his exploits with co workers. More and more the name ‘Hawkeye’ took the place of hers. She didn’t know Hawkeye (and she doubted she ever would), but slowly she began to hate him; he was taking her husband away, turning him into a man she didn’t know.

 _The other night, dear,  
As I lay sleeping  
I dreamed I held you in my arms.  
When I awoke, dear,  
I was mistaken  
And I hung my head and cried;_

She can’t bear being apart like this.

“We haven’t been apart this long since we’ve been married… hell, even when we were dating,” she writes. She doesn’t use foul language often, but sometimes she finds it necessary. “My nights are so empty. Thank God for Erin… without her, I’m not sure what I would do with myself. My only comfort is knowing that soon (I pray before Christmas) you will be home, where you rightfully belong: regular office hours, playing with Erin, me in your arms as we doze off in front of the fire… making love again, like newlyweds.”

She often dreams that he is home. It is those dreams that wear her insides down, because she wakes up and realizes that she is alone. She rereads his old letters, the letters he sent before his tone began to change. That is her B.J. That is the man she fell in love with.

 _I'll always love you  
And make you happy  
If you will only say the same.  
But if you leave me  
To love another  
You’ll regret it all someday;_

She still dreams that he is home. But now, instead of her husband, it is a man she doesn’t quite know. He’s the same on the outside (except for that mustache… how she wished he’d shave it!), perhaps a little grayer than when he left; but his insides are being torn in two directions. He doesn’t come out and say it in his letters, but she can read in between the lines.

“I will always love you, darling,” she writes. She, too, is torn inside. She loves this man with her heart and soul, she’ll do anything to make him happy, and she knows he feels the same way towards her; she knows he feels that way for someone else, too. “But I know that there is something you are not telling me. Something important. I want you to know that I am always here for you, for anything you need to talk about. I will refrain from making any accusations, because we both know what happens when we assume things…”

She sends the letter, and waits with bated breath for whatever response should come.

 _You told me once, dear,  
You really loved me  
And no one else could come between.  
But now you've left me  
And love another;  
You have shattered all my dreams;_

She can read the regret in his words. She can hear him crying as he wrote this letter.

“I’m so sorry, Peg. I don’t even know when it happened. Hell, I don’t even know how it happened. Part of me regrets it every. single. day. I hate that I’ve done this to you.”

She begins to tear up, thinking how hard this letter must have been to write; the letter that tells your wife, the mother of your child, that you are in love with someone else. And not just anyone else. Your tent mate. Your male tent mate.

“I love you, darling,” the letter continues, “I will always love you. I can understand if you never want to have anything to do with me again. I don’t even want to deal with me on most days. But Hawkeye assures me that…”

She stops reading and throws the letter into the fireplace. She heads to their (but now it would only be hers) bedroom, to the box under the bed. It is an old shoebox, filled with her memories from the years past: notes they passed when they were dating, movie ticket stubs, photographs. She puts the box on top of the letter and lights the pile on fire. And, almost as if to solidify her decision, she takes their wedding photograph out of the frame on the mantle. Their smiles, so young and naive, burn away almost instantly.

Along with a large chunk of her spirit.

Erin begins to cry. She pulls herself away from the small blaze to comfort her daughter, who has been woken from her nap by a bad dream. Peg picks up the toddler, knowing full well that she may never meet her daddy now, and begins to sing one of Erin’s favorite lullabies.

 _You are my sunshine,  
My only sunshine.  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey.  
You'll never know, dear,  
How much I love you.  
Please don't take my sunshine away._


End file.
